A knock-out blow was thus described by a young Frenchman, attached to the Interpreters' Corps: "Last week my parents had a pleasant surprise. I took home to supper one of your brave Tommies. I met him as interpreter, and he told me his story. He fought the Boches (nickname for the Germans) from the beginning of the war, and was at Mons, Charleroi, Landrecies, Soissons, and the battles of the Marne and Aisne. On October 15th he was captured by a German patrol, composed of six Uhlans, and was disarmed, but kept his horse. Three of the six went to get some tea, one went for an interpreter, and two watched Tommy. After a short time one of the two lay down on the grass, while the other stood by the side of their prisoner. Tommy was still for a quarter of an hour, and he then suddenly gave the Boche an 'uppercut,' and he fell exhausted. The other Boche got up and went for him, but the English Tommy knocked him out with the first blow, and jumped on his horse. The other Boches had heard the struggle, and as he rode off the bullets whistled past his ears, but luckily he escaped. I asked him if he was a boxer, and he answered me, 'Rather! I matched with my cousin Fred Welsh, who is now a world champion in the light weights!'" Corporal Isherwood, 2nd Manchester Regiment, when he came home wounded, told how a boy led his regiment in a bayonet charge. "On October 20th the Germans were all around us, and their fire enfiladed our trenches. First our lieutenant was wounded, then the sergeant, and we were left without a single officer to command the platoon. We were wondering what to do when a drummer-boy, of eighteen, the baby of the company, threw up his cap, and with a ringing cheer yelled: 'Fix bayonets, lads.' We did, and charged the advancing Germans. The boy was in the act of bayoneting a German when the latter shouted, 'For God's sake, don't stick me.' 'It is too late,' returned the youngster, 'it is through you.'" Corporal Gleeson, of the Coldstream Guards, tells this story: "At Soissons our attention was attracted by a young lad of the Connaught Rangers. He was fighting single-handed against seven Germans. He was doing nicely, but just as he was withdrawing his bayonet from the fifth German to go down, one of them caught him, and he dropped. We fought our way over, and finished the other two, and just managed to catch the poor lad before his last breath went. 'You saw it,' he said, and we said we had. 'You think I did my best, and they won't blame me because seven was too many for me? I'm only a boy, and they were such big chaps.' We told him if any man said or hinted he hadn't done his best, and more, there wasn't one of us wouldn't kill him. He smiled ever so sweetly, and then he died. We drew our coat sleeves across our eyes to stop or hide the blinding tears that came in spite of us."